


Ifs and Buts and Might-Have-Beens

by TerrusDacktellus



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics)
Genre: Andrew is precious, Multi, comic fic, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4963084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerrusDacktellus/pseuds/TerrusDacktellus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike finds out that the Buffy he saw in Rome was a decoy and no one had ever bothered to tell him. He is not impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ifs and Buts and Might-Have-Beens

**Author's Note:**

> Set in S10, sometime after 10x8. Written for the prompt "Spike finding out that Buffy never dated the Immortal, he saw a decoy in Rome and that Andrew is the devious little sneak who planned it all" from an anon on Tumblr. Another promptathon fic.
> 
> (rated for swearing)

“And tonight on Dancing with Stars, we have a very special guest judge, it’s the one, the only, Harrrrrmony Kendaaaallll!!!” 

“Hey, Spike, it’s your celebrity crush!” 

Buffy’s voice rang with glee and Spike groaned and covered his face dramatically with his hands. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, switch that crap off, I’ve had enough of that twit’s whiny voice for a lifetime,” he complained. Of course, Buffy, little sadist that she was, just turned up the sound on the TV. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the Scoobies’ weekly ritual of invading each others’ apartments to eat junk food and watch crappy TV - Spike was a die hard advocate of junk food and crappy TV - but did it have to be Dancing With Stars? He cringed as Harmony sashayed out on stage, dressed in eye watering pink and beaming vapidly at her adoring fans. 

“Helloooo America,” she trilled, in a voice that could charitably be compared to a pneumatic drill and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Buffy laughing as he winced again. Spike scowled at her, stung. He usually loved the banter between them, was always happy to acknowledge a point scored, but Harmony was something of a sore subject, not least because he wasn’t sure how Buffy would react if she found out about about his latest coital indiscretion. 

They were over, right? Him and Buffy. Nothing happening there, strictly friends, which was good. Was how he wanted it. But he’d thought they were over before and she’d had a right fanny attack about that incident with Anya - alright, sleeping with her best friend’s ex-fiancée had hardly been fair, but he hadn’t expected her to care who he shagged. Now he just didn’t know. He hadn’t a clue where he stood with Buffy and precious and all as being in her life was to him, the constant sensation of skating on thin ice was exhausting. 

“Now who has tragic taste?” Buffy’s voice was light, but in his guilt and uncertainty, she was as opaque as she’d ever been to him. He couldn’t tell if she was teasing or mocking. 

“Says the bird who ran around Rome chasing the Immortal,” he retorted, trying to match her tone. 

There was a confused silence, as not just Buffy but everyone else in the room stopped to stare at him. 

“The Immortal?” she repeated, bewildered. “I never dated the Immortal.”

“Yeah you did!” Like he could forget the sick, sinking feeling seeing them together had brought on. 

“Did not!”

“I bloody well saw you!”

“You were in Rome?” 

Well, shit. That’d torn it. Buffy’s eyes were very round and the rest of the Scoobies were suddenly fascinated by their snacks and drinks. All except Andrew, who seemed to be trying to shrink into the woodwork. 

“You weren’t?” His voice sounded so hoarse and strange to him. Did the others hear it? Since when did he care so much what they thought of him anyway? Buffy just looked at him, her eyes softening with something very like sympathy, only that made no sense whatsoever.

“No one told you about the decoys?” Yep, definitely sympathy. Also, the fuck?

“Decoys?” he repeated stupidly. “What decoys?”

Buffy frowned over his shoulder, piercing Andrew with her gaze. 

“This is why it was funny?” she said in that harsh, General Slayer voice he hadn’t heard since Sunnydale. She turned back to Spike without waiting for an answer.

“When I was running the slayer army back in Scotland, there were concerns about my safety,” she said. “In order to put potential threats off my scent, there were a number of decoys placed around the world, slayers given glamours to look like me. There was one in Rome.” Here she paused and eyed Andrew coldly. “I believe she dated the Immortal as part of her cover story.”

Spike felt a chill settle in his chest. It took him a moment to realise he was angry: usually, it just exploded out of him, but now all he could feel was a cold burning. He set his beer carefully on the floor by his chair and stood. 

“You,” he barked, pointing a finger at Andrew. “Outside. Now.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, he just wrapped his hand around his skinny, little bicep and dragged him out the door, ignoring the prickling silence he left behind him. 

* * * 

“What the fuck?” 

He’d chosen the fire escape for their little tête-à-tête, mostly so he could smoke, but also because a small part of him enjoyed the implied threat of the 3 storey drop. Plus it was cold and Andrew didn’t have a jacket. Let him shiver, the bastard. 

Andrew gulped audibly and hugged his upper arms like he was trying to collapse in on himself. “I thought you knew by now.”

“Know? How the fuck would I know ANYTHING, seeing as no one in this stupid clique tells me SHIT?!”

“I - I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry?! What the fuck good is sorry? You let me fucking waltz off into the sunset with bloody Angel on tow, thinking Buffy was living the high life and all that time she was building an army, becoming — fuck me, Andrew, if you’d told us then …”

Suddenly deflated, Spike trailed off as the implications occurred and Andrew raised his chin and squared his reedy shoulders, a bulldog in a Chihuahuas’ body. He stared back defiantly and Spike got it. 

“You know, don’t you?” For a moment, Spike was too stunned to be angry. “If you’d been straight with us then, Buffy and Angel might have talked. She might have helped us in LA — Twilight might never have —”

Andrew sniffed, but didn’t back down, to Spike’s mild surprise. Somewhere along the way, the boy’d grown a spine. 

“I know,” he said, and there was more than a sniffle threatening in there, but he ploughed ahead regardless. “I played god with peoples’ lives, again, and people got hurt, again, and it’s all my fault. And every time I try to make up for it, I just — I make things worse.”

Certain things, like firing squads and guilt complexes, could only be faced with a fag in hand. Spike fumbled for a smoke and lit up with the grim efficiency of an addict. He blew smoke out of his nostrils and watched Andrew, anger warring with frustration and helplessness. How many people had Twilight killed? How many slayers? Members of Andrew’s own squad? In the face of that, the permanent drama of his relationship with Buffy just felt petty. 

Andrew had turned his face away, like he was crying and from the tense lines of his neck, Spike guessed he was furious with those traitor tears for escaping. He took another drag, feeling his skin crawl uncomfortably, the way it always did when anything reminded him of his past self. Bloody William. 

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “Andrew — look, it’s all ifs and buts and might-have-beens. Fuck all you can do to change it now.”

He got a limp shrug in response. Gritting his teeth against the urge to shake him, Spike grabbed Andrew by the shoulder and squeezed firmly, enough to ground him but not enough to hurt. 

“We are all complicit in that mess,” he said harshly. “I could’ve called Buffy. ‘f I’d been less of a coward about seeing her again, I coulda talked to her. Told her about the mess in LA. She’d have stepped in for me or for Angel, because that’s who she is. Twilight’d never have gotten its hooks into Mr Monobrow if LA hadn’t fallen. Giles refused to help us when we were facing the senior partners, could’ve stopped the fall there too. An’ again later on when he knew about the prophecy and di’n’t tell anyone. Not to mention Ol’ Forehead himself coulda bloody well said no, but he’s never been able to resist a quick fix.” 

A little shudder ran through Andrew’s scrawny frame. “But that’s me,” he whispered. “I always, always think I can fix things and I always just make them worse.”

He looked at Spike for the first time since he’d started crying, big eyes starting out of his tear stained face. 

“You wanna know why I set the decoy up with the Immortal? ‘Cause I figured you and Angel might come looking. It - it was a test. I thought I could see if you were ‘ready’ to be with Buffy, if you ‘deserved’ her. I thought I could fit you into another dumb story and I could be the - the neutral observer and I was just trying to make myself important and - and I ruinedeverythingagaaaain.”

That last part came out in a stumbling rush, ending with a miserable wail. Andrew hiccoughed and scrubbed at his eyes furiously, looking mortally embarrassed. There was an awkward pause while he wiped on his nose on a neatly folded handkerchief that appeared to be embroidered with little space ships. No accounting for taste. Spike waited to see if he’d got the moping out of his system but he just seemed to be getting more worked up, hugging himself ever tighter and shrinking ever smaller. That was a talent that came from wanting to be invisible for a very long time. From being a target. A vague sense memory arose from the sight, a brief flicker of cold corridors and lumpy beds far away from home and teachers with canes. William. Couldn’t seem to shake the bastard tonight. 

Sympathy didn’t seem to working so he went for shock tactics. 

“Di’n’t realise you were so important,” he said casually, sending a plume of smoke streaming from his nostrils and Andrew stopped snivelling to stare at him. 

“Huh?”

“So the fate of the whole world rests on your shoulders at all times, is it? Guess you’re to blame for world hunger too, then.”

Andrew stared at him blankly.  
“Look, mate,” he said, too impatient to let him figure it out by himself. “It may well feel all noble and righteous suckin’ all the blame and guilt of the world into yourself to carry, but in the end you’re just devaluin’ the independence of everyone around you. You the only one in the world has free will?”

“Noo-o-o.” Andrew didn’t sound very sure. 

“Bloody right you aren’t!” Spike pressed mercilessly on. “Accept the blame that’s yours, right, an’ don’ go borrowin’ trouble. Right, yeah, you should’ve been up front back in Rome, but hell, even if you had been, there’s no telling if either of us woulda had the balls to actually follow up and call Buffy.” 

He paused suck on the stub of his fag, half burned to ashes now and wondered how this conversation had got from tearing a few well deserved holes in the little shit to a touchy-feely therapy session. He reached for the anger again, and found that it had dissipated, leaving only deeply uneasy sense of understanding. The quiet stretched on and on and Andrew just looked out over the street, face blank. 

“Buffy doesn’t need protection from no one, least of all you or me,” said Spike at last. “Hard thing to accept. But there’s other things we can give ‘er. Friendship. Support. Lastin’ things. All we can do ’s move forward. Wringin’ your hands with guilt won’t get you shit but insane in a basement.”

He flicked the cigarette butt out into the night and watched the spark swan dive and vanish into darkness. In the dim glow of the street lights, Andrew gave him a wan, hopeful smile. Right. Mission accomplished. Though it was pretty different mission from the original one. That left one last thing to do. 

“You tell anyone about this conversation, o’ course …” He trailed off meaningfully and Andrew snorted lightly. 

“And you’ll kill me. Right, got it.” 

“Good.” Spike shook another cigarette out of the packet and clamped it between his lips. “Shove off an’ let me smoke in peace, then.”

“‘Kay.” Andrew pulled the door open and then just stood there for a moment. Spike refused to look at him. There’d already been more emotional bonding than he’d ever actually wanted. 

“Spike?”

“What?” he snapped.

“I know it’s none of my business, but for what it’s worth, I — I think you’re ready now.” 

“You’re right,” he said, surprising himself with his own calm. “It is none o’ your business. Bugger off now, Andrew, there’s a good lad.” 

There was another pause and then out of nowhere, two gentle pats on his shoulder. The door shut behind him with a soft click and Spike blew out a long stream of smoke, watching it unfurl and hang in the air. It wreathed his head, grey ghosts like half-formed faces looming out of the dark. He saw other times and places, missed opportunities, futures that could have been.

“Bugger,” he muttered. “Nowt to be done about it now.” 

* * *

“He really didn’t know?”

Andrew jumped what felt like three feet into the air. Buffy must practically have been lying in wait for him behind the door. 

“Uhhh, nope,” he said, trying to sound casual, like he hadn’t just been discussing the very large part he’d played in ruining his idol’s life. 

“Shit,” muttered Buffy and crossed her arms tightly. Andrew remembered what Spike had said about support. Here went nothing. 

“Um, is everything, um, okay?” Damn, that’d come out all squeaky. 

“Yeah. Yeah, totally.” Buffy glanced back to where the other four were half asleep in front of the TV. Her shoulders slumped. “No. Not at all.” 

“You wanna talk about it?” Look at him, succeeding at human interaction, without sticking his foot in his mouth. Yeah, everything was so coming up Andrew. 

Buffy sighed heavily. “He must have thought, all these years — I mean, he was only a few months dead and there I was, slutting around with some guy he hated?” Her head bowed and she mumbled at her shoes. “No wonder he never told me he was alive.” 

“Buffy …” It would be so simple. Just tell her how crazy Spike clearly still was about her, how mature he’d gotten, maybe mention that he smelled particularly good tonight — not that Andrew had been sniffing him or anything, he wasn’t some psycho stalker, there just wasn’t a whole lot of space on that fire escape and Spike-smell was kinda over powering, even with the cigarettes — anyway, all that and presto, Dramatic Heroes’ Reunion make out scene. Ohhh, he even had the Han Solo and the Princess theme on his iPod, it’d be perfect — and it was so none of his business. Dammit. 

“I’m sorry,” he finished lamely. “Is there anything I can do?” 

She sighed. “Can you go back in time and erase all my mistakes and fix my deep seated fear of intimacy?”

“Well, time travel by physical means isn’t really possible, but by magical means, I mean there’s all sorts of demons that have been known to control and manipulate the flow of time—” He stopped. “Oh. And you were joking. I knew that.”

She laughed softly and his heart squeezed in his chest. She was his hero and he would always feel partly responsible for everything that hurt her, dumb and all as that was. 

“Buffy, I know this means nothing now, but I know — I realise that I screwed up hugely. And I’ve learned my lesson about messing with peoples’ lives. And I’m sorry that I — I failed you.” He ended in a hushed whisper and Buffy gave him a shrug and a tired half smile.

“We all screw up, Andrew. It’s okay.” She sighed again. “Too late to change anything now anyway, I guess.” She glanced wistfully towards the door. “Is he still out there?”

He nodded mutely, waiting, hoping for the moment, the grand reconciliation. Buffy stirred as if she was about to go to the door, half raising her hand and hesitating, wavering.

“He probably doesn’t want to talk me to right now anyway,” she said finally and turned back to the TV, burrowing her way between Willow and Dawn and slumping back on the sofa. Her eyes were glazed and far away, like she was seeing something else. Andrew gritted his teeth in frustration. Did they realise, the pair of them, all the missed moments lying between them? _None of your business,_ Spike’s voice seemed to say in his head. Helplessly, he pulled up a chair and sat down to watch a couple in tacky, matching outfits mangling a foxtrot. Not his business, he repeated to himself like a mantra. Not his business.

**Author's Note:**

> Btw, if it seems like I'm being a little harsh with poor Andrew, please keep in mind that this is Spike's POV and he's not in a very good mood. Don't worry, he'll soften up in the future.


End file.
